


Some Will Fall

by megSUPERFAN



Series: Children of the Barricade [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Barricade Scenes, Character Death, End of the Verses of Jean Prouvaire, Gen, Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk, Parallels, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megSUPERFAN/pseuds/megSUPERFAN
Summary: "If he was to be the sacrifice, so be it."Two barricade scenes that nearly parallel, except one man dies alone. Deaths of Prouvaire and Enjolras.
Relationships: Enjolras & Grantaire (Les Misérables), Les Amis de l'ABC Friendship
Series: Children of the Barricade [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663738
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Some Will Fall

**Author's Note:**

> All the dialogue in the Enjolras scenes is directly from the book and does not belong to me. Also Jehan's last words.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)

Jehan opened his eyes, then wondered why they had been closed. Bit by bit, his senses returned.

The barricade had been replaced by a uniformed wall. Expressionless faces (and ones he could have read if there were not more immediate thoughts in his mind) watched him. Some talked among themselves, but all the voices were strange to Jehan. None of his friends were near. Hard hands gripped him, and his own hands were bound.

For a moment of panic Jehan thought that the battle was over already. But no. The barricade wasn't taken. He was.

* * *

_He is alone. He wields the broken weapon as if it will do any good and waits for them to come._

_He pushes his sorrow down inside like he has been doing the entire fight long. It almost doesn't work anymore; they are gone, and everything in him just wants everything over. He will see them soon._

_Enjolras looks down at himself for a moment. Whose blood covers him, if not his own?_

_They come, and he is alone. He pushes his grief away. He will not let them see._

* * *

Jehan strained his ears to listen for his friends' voices from the other side. He couldn't hear distinct words, and then someone shouted his name. "Prouvaire!" It was Combeferre calling. Jehan's heart clenched inside him. They knew he was missing.

Was he to be bait? A bargaining tool? Why had his captors kept him alive? And then he looked closely at their faces, their guns that were waiting by their sides, and realized.

They were not going to keep him alive.

* * *

_They slow when they realize that he is the only one l_ _eft. They recognize him as the leader, but there's hardly any more room for pride in Enjolras. He throws his weapon aside, faces them._

_They will kill him, and he will die alone. And all his mind and his heart can ask is, Has this been enough?_

" _Shoot me."_

* * *

A man dragged Jehan to his feet, and the young man stood upright. He could not physically resist, but that did not mean he would not go down fighting. If they wanted fear, he would not satisfy their demands.

One man issued the command, and another made ready his gun.

"Blindfold him."

"No." Jehan looked the soldier directly in the eyes. No, he did not want to die blind to the world, the sky and the street and the people blocked from view. To his amazement, his hands did not tremble, his heart did not race.

If he was to be the sacrifice, so be it.

* * *

_Too many sacrifices. Part of Enjolras hopes he will be the last, part of him selfishly wishes his friends were dying with him. But they already have._

_He will die strong. He has to._

_One soldier puts up his hand, turning to Enjolras. "Do you want your eyes bandaged?"_

" _No." Humiliation, that's what it would be, and Enjolras is several atmospheres above humiliation. Above weakness, above surrender._

* * *

"You have no chance. You are throwing away your lives." Jehan was startled to hear the man speak to him.

"No. We fight for freedom." He wasn't sure where the words were coming from. Jehan supposed he was just as resistant to dying in silence as in darkness. "We fight for a new tomorrow, for the people."

"You will die."

"I may. But France will live." A fire was stirring in Jehan, familiar to him, ready to burn for the last time. "You care not for those who are starving, who are dying. You believe that the values visible in every person are worth less than the dead stones beneath your feet! We fight for a new and a better world, and we will _win._ "

* * *

" _Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?" Enjolras remembers the moment as if it was occurring before his eyes, hearing his own voice again-_ _'Let me alone. It must be done.'_

" _Yes." He doesn't apologize, but Combeferre's words echo in his mind. 'Let us not shoot him. He is our brother.'_

_Brother shooting brother. It happened then, and it is exactly what is happening now._

* * *

"Take aim." Jehan strained against the ropes, hoping his voice would carry to his friends who waited on the far side of the barricade.

" _Vive la France!_ Long live the future!"

They fired, and his voice was stilled.

But Jehan had not gone unheard.

* * *

" _Long live the Republic! I'm one of them."_

_You?_

_So Enjolras is not to die alone after all. And if the doubter can believe, anything is possible. Hope again rises in him, and it is with this hope that his life will end. Of course he will permit it._

_He isn't aware he is smiling, but he welcomes Grantaire in these final seconds. He stands corrected, after all._

_You are capable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living._

_And of dying._

_Enjolras thought he would fall but he doesn't._

_There is Grantaire dead at his feet and everyone dead in his mind and Enjolras dead still standing._


End file.
